NBN, Libs plan both serve telemedicine

Leading surgeon and medical media pioneer, Professor Andrew Renaut, has said that either the National Broadband Network (NBN) or the $6 billion Coalition alternative would be sufficient to overcome Australia's "bandwidth barrier", which he says is preventing technological advances in fields such as medicine and education.

Professor Andrew Renaut says that either the NBN or the Coalition alternative would suffice for the expansion of video surgery and online education in Australia. (Credit: Andrew Renaut)

Renaut has been broadcasting "video surgery" to university students for the last four years through the Australian Institute of Medical Education.

While the operations are webcast at reasonable quality, Renaut said that an ADSL2+ connection is a minimum requirement for viewing the live procedures.

Renaut told ZDNet Australia that while Australia's current broadband infrastructure was adequate for streaming procedures at a reasonable quality, either the fibre-to-the-home NBN or the Coalition's national internet plan would be a powerful tool in the ongoing development of video surgery.

"I've always thought that Labor's NBN is very good, despite being jolly expensive, and while a cheaper solution may not be as good, it would probably suffice," said the professor.

While Renaut said that it was possible for the webcast to be compressed, the picture quality and in turn the education value would suffer.

"You need to have a certain level of quality when it comes to viewing operations [for training purposes], otherwise you may as well not bother," he said.

Renaut sees himself as ahead of the curve, and is looking to broadcast in high definition once greater bandwidth is available. He encourages his colleagues to do the same in an effort to create an online surgical training channel for university students.

Shadow Communications Minister Tony Smith and Coalition Finance spokesperson Andrew Robb yesterday revealed the long-awaited Coalition alternative to Labor's National Broadband Network. Liberal's $6 billion plan includes spending for fibre, wireless, satellite infrastructure and a metropolitan broadband optimisation program.